Track plan not available to edit

[Alan K]

I created a track plan several months ago which I have been using ever since. I have just made a couple of changes to my layout and need to reflect them in that track plan. However when I enter edit mode there is no plan to edit, The pull down box where you should be able to select the name of the plan you want to edit is also blank. As editing track plans is not something one does very often I don't know when it vanished. I have upgraded from 1.72 to 1.73 in the hope that it might resolve the issue but it has not. I imagine the only solution will be to recreate a plan from scratch but that will be laborious and prone to error especially where point control is concerned. I can take a screenshot of the layout in normal mode but that will not show the point configurations and there are around 20. 

The track plan must exist somewhere for RM to use it in operation mode so it's hard to understand why it isn't visible in edit mode.

Any suggestions to avoid having to do that would be most welcome.

Alan

[Fishmanoz]

Alan, did you save your trackplan with its own unique name, not just edit an existing RM plan without changing its name?  If you didn't change the name, the update will have overwritten the plan back to the RM default plan of that name.

 

In any case, suggest you use Windows Explorer (or whatever it is called now) to examine your RM folder to see what plans you can find and see if yours is there.  They are the files with the .pln extension and note that there will be backups of them too with .bck.  You can rename the backups as .pln to see what they contain, but remember again to use a unique name when you do. 

[Chrissaf]

Just a slight correction to Fishy's post. The backup file versions will have the .BAK extension not .BCK

.

As Fishy has stated. Use 'Windows File Explorer' to navigate to the RailMaster program folder. Search for files using this search term *.pln this should list all your plan files and look for the one you created.

.

Note that the Windows default for 'Windows File Explorer' is to hide the file extension ... in this case .pln

.

To show file extensions, go to 'Folder Options' in Windows 'Control Panel' [View Tab] and make sure that 'Hide extensions for known file types' is unticked. [note that 'Folder Options is called 'File Explorer Options' in Windows 10]

.

This will at least prove whether your plan is still there or not, which is a starting point to then work out why you can't see it in RailMaster.

.

EDIT: If the plan displays on the main screen as normal when RailMaster starts, then the plan file must therefore be present and in the correct folder. This is what your post infers is the case.

.

Note that it is not always obvious when you open the plan pull down list box that the box is scrollable. Maybe the box is opening with the list scrolled off the visible box screen. Try scrolling the box up to the top of the list to see if all the plans then appear.

.

Also, ensure that the .pln files are actually still in the RailMaster program folder. If they are present, but in another folder for some reason, then they won't appear in the list. And as Fishy says, if the .PLN file versions are missing but the .BAK versions are present, then rename the files from .BAK to .PLN to re-instate them. However, if this was actually the case, then your plan wouldn't load correctly when you start RailMaster.

.

If all else fails. Use the 'support request' pro-forma in the 'Help Screen' and ask for HRMS to remotey log on to your PC to investigate.

.

PS - I can see all my stored track plans in my 1.73 working copy of RailMaster, so it does not appear to be a widespread software BUG issue.

[96RAF]

In the main set up screen the pull down there will tell you the name of your active plan.

 

If as Fishy says this is a standard RM plan which you have modified but not renamed then it has likely gone in the wind when you updated. If your plan is still showing at start up then chances are it is uniquely named and is still in the RM folder.

[Alan K]

The track plan has a unique name and does as I said load into RM in normal mode. In edit mode nothing shows no matter how much I scroll up and down the pull down box - not even the RM default track plan whatever that is called. I'll have a browse around RM folders when I have a chance. 

[Chrissaf]

Get RailMaster [hrMS] support involved via the 'Help Screen'.

.

PS - I assume that you have re-booted the PC to check if the blank list is just a 'one off' temporary Windows glitch.

[Alan K]

Chris - This problem has been running over a few days with PC turned off between sessions plus an update to RM so it was not a Windows glitch - just a RM one!!

As suggested I looked at the Railmaster folder and found several plan files including mine. 

I thought I would try a long shot by double clicking on the plan file to see if it would open RM and if so what would happen. It did indeed open with my layout and lo and behold when I entered edit mode the layouts were all there in the pull down. That must have restored a broken link somewhere. RM is a law unto itself so who knows how the archaic program works.

Rather odd but I have now managed to configure the additional points that I couldn't control - and of course one of them defaulted at power up to routing into an unfinished section of the layout! Now OK.

Thanks for the advice.

Alan

[Chrissaf]

Looks like the double click route you took re-instated a flag somewhere in RM that reset the 'folder path'. In other words, RM lost its memory as to which folder the plans were in and your action reset it.

.

I shall memorise your fix to use again if someone asks the same question later. So thank you for the feedback.